I mean, it HAS become sort of a rule and less of an exception. Guys are portrayed is a less sexual light than females in games, I agree… But it doesn’t mean we don’t sexualize the men on our own, you know?

As for Arkham City… that is an entirely different beast. Harley throwing women into rape pits? That’s a discussion I’ll willing to take part in once I finish the game, I promise!

That’s mainly because the gaming demographic is still largely male.

I run a Facebook page called the “Gallian Liberation Front” which is a videogame community for a JRPG. You know what I found out by looking at the stats? The ratio of male gamers in my group is 93%.

I can assure you that IF it was the opposite the marketing in the game industry would follow suit and you would have more sexy male characters.

The only problem is that, in this case, there’s no cause. It’s telling developers that they shouldn’t design what gamers want and what they, themselves, like. Which is laughable at best, malicious at worst, as it aims to make other people’s work look bad to further one’s agenda, whether it’s a “cause” (quotes mandatory) or simply a personal popularity quest (which is the case here, I’d say).

What men and women perceive as sexually atractive is different. The first image of chris redfield in RE5 is his face because his face is, to quote a lady friend of mine “drop dead gorgeous”. His butt, on the other hand, is rather forgettable. Chris redfield is portrayed in a very sexualized way. Killer stubbie? Check. Rippling muscles with tight, half sleeve shirt? Check. He’s designed and portrayed to appease women as much as Shiva is designed and portrayed to appease men. The only thing that changes is that as an average women and men primarily like different things. 

I eagerly await the day in which artists and designers will be free to design (and enjoy designing) whatever the hell they want, instead of having a bunch of activists of any sort trying to dictate what they should or shouldn’t do and what WE should or shouldn’t LIKE.  

Classic painters, sculptors and artists were normally allowed to, despite some rather violent and restrictive censoring attempts by the church. There’s no reason why game developers, comic artists and the like shouldn’t be given the same leeway. It’s funny as hell that feminists and other kinds of activists are now taking the same role as the church. 

I would disagree that it doesn’t apply to the majority of those that make those arguments, especially on the internet. 

It’s no matter if people are paid for their work (you make it sound almost like a bad thing), artists and designers express themselves and what they like no matter if they do it as a job or as a hobby. Activist trying to dictate what they should design or what we should like are overstepping their bounds, and by quite a lot. Internet or media bullying is no too different from violent repression.

There’s very little of what Chris Redfield “is” in Resident Evil 5. There’s a super muscular, super sexy dude with little brains and a lot of brawn and sex appeal. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong in that, as much as there’s nothing wrong in showing off Sheva’s rear. It’s something beautiful to see, and people need to come to terms that sex and sexyness isn’t aren’t bad things. Praxiteles and Lysippos would have a word or two with them.

I’ll leave you with a final laugh. yesterday I read a blog that wanted to shoehorn rape imagery in this scene. Just lol. http://youtu.be/-e8ovPsf0i4

yay activism. Again, I can only hope that one day will come in which game designers and any kind of artist will be able to feel free to design whatever the hell they like without having self professed “activists” trying to bully them away from it.

I didn’t know that the “cuteness” factor for uniforms accounted for which school they would go to.

Quite interesting…

Hey Red,

Thanks for commenting. You have a fairly interesting view, which is pretty much why I am replying.

Going back to what you’re saying, being force-fed PR BS is still freedom of expression, no? I mean, there are laws which pretty much gives them the overall right to, just as we do, practice this. I totally understand, and agree, with your perspective regarding how the overall media depicts and promotes things. However, at the end of the day, what is contained and perceived totally relies on the individuals perspective to accept that content and move along with it.

Yes, there are innocent children who are definitely the subjects who this is targeted towards because of their inability to rationally comprehend or analyze things. At the end of the day, however, it isn’t the fault of the media or advertiser depicting the content, it’s both the parenting and governmental practices which allow it. And at the end of the day, as much as we can argue back and forth about things, sex sells — this is something that has been perpetuated for ages. It is the tool that’s used to attract the opposite sex to ogle the products being marketed. And it is a tool that, even after our time, will continue to be used in order to capitalize on certain products.

Then again, you’re arguing the whole sexualism in games as if it’s been done excessively. Want a list of non-pneumatic heroines in video games that aren’t dressed like they work at the Bunny Ranch in Las Vegas? How about Aerith (FFVII),Yuna (FFX), Naomi from the MGS series, Elena from Uncharted, Madison Paige from Heavy Rain, Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2, Bonnie McFarlane from Red Dead Redemption, or even Princess Zelda? Your argument makes it sound as if all female heroes are marketed as skanky prostitutes. Yes, there are some who are overly undressed, to say the least. But when you take the amount of female characters who are heroes and compare them to the number of tit-promoting characters out there, the numbers are in the favor of the more “preserved” women.

“Sexy” is pretty much subjective to the person perceiving. What’s sexy to you might not be sexy to me, etc. The practice of sexuality isn’t the egregious part here, Red. Sexuality is normal, regardless of how much we would like to argue it. It’s a facet of humanity that we use, even personally, to instill confidence, and promote attraction. There’s no sense of masking it when it’s blatantly out there. Sure we could do things to prevent our youth from being exposed to it, but ask yourself if we can truly ever omit it. It’s about educating, not about omitting.

You’re generalizing the population as if it’s the “majority,” as you’ve stated, that are embracing these practices. Yes, I have heard of cases of Asian women “whitening” themselves. Do you know who are the ones that do that? The ones with zero self-esteem. Give me the number of women doing that. Is it substantial? Or are you just adding that to the argument because of the fact that it *is* happening? Because, again, if that’s the case, then this can date back to thousands of years ago where women would, and still, elongate their necks, shave their heads, pierce their bodies, etc. They do this because it is, what they *culturally* feel attracts the opposite sex. Culture and religion, as much as you want to brush it off, is and always will be a substantial part of how women and men perceive sexuality in some places around the world. Is isn’t as substantial as the more “advanced” places, but it still exists.

Advanced societies share culture. We may not share customs, but we definitely share manifestations of human achievement collectively. And this includes what we see every day. At the end of the day, you have a choice of whether or not to ignore what’s being put out there. As an individual, you choose what affects you and what doesn’t affect you. To blame the outside world for how you make your day-to-day decisions based on what’s advertised is a result of perplexity or a battered self-esteem. You have the option to tune things out — whether or not you choose to be affected by these “norms” which you consciously know are directed to capitalize at your cost is your problem. Then again, we can’t go on giving the majority of the world credit for being rational/logical, as they’re doing things like whitening themselves, getting bigger penises, and adding Jell-O to their tits.